


Cup of Tea

by thawrecka



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-30
Updated: 2003-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thawrecka/pseuds/thawrecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer after Buffy died Spike was a soggy blanket and Giles was a tired old man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cup of Tea

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this since I saw Bargaining, but didn't make a start 'till November last year and only just picked it up and finished it recently. Spoilers up to and including Bargaining, I think, but probably nothing after The Gift.
> 
> Won runner up for best angst at The Candy Store Awards.

The kettle whistles. He pours the hot water, it turning dark in the cup. He jiggles the teabag, absent-minded. The milk makes a splashing noise as it goes in.

Giles has a headache, as he does most mornings. He feels heavy and tired. The world looks kind of dark and dreary, even in this sunny hole.

He gets a little tea on the counter and his fingers. The mug is warm in his hands as he leaves his tiny kitchen. On the way out he grabs the pack of cigarettes Buffy didn't know he had. He only started smoking again when Joyce died, and he plans to stop sometime soon.

He takes a sip and it burns the roof of his mouth. It is warm going down his throat, and he feels that warmth spreading throughout his body.

He puts his cup of tea down on the coffee table and lights his cigarette. He feels terribly old like this, leaning back on the couch in his dressing gown, smoking.

There is a knock on the door. It's not light yet, but it soon will be, so there aren't many people that might be knocking on his door.

Giles fumbles with the lock, but manages to open the door, revealing a thin, pale figure. It leans against the doorway with bloodshot eyes, reeking of cigarettes and cheap whisky.

"Spike." It's hard not to wrap the name with contempt.

Spike stumbles into the apartment, past Giles, and barely misses knocking into the hallstand. Giles turns and directs his glare at Spike.

"Can I stay here today?" Spike asks. "The sun's about to rise and I'm a little far from my place."

Spike pauses. "And I don't much fancy being alone in there, anyway."

Giles closes the door behind him. "All right, but don't make a mess."

Spike settles on the couch, bent over. Giles sits next to him and finishes his cigarette and cup of tea in silence.

 

Later, Giles goes to his room and gets dressed, methodically. He has to go and be a sober, responsible grown up now, and pretend Buffy's death isn't like a dull ache in his chest.

 

At the Magic Box, Giles feels like his ears are going to explode. He likes Anya, really, but she's just a little much most of the time.

"Anya, I will take care of it in my own good time," he tells her.

"But, this is important," she protests.

"Anya, please. There are customers waiting. This can wait until lunch," he assures her.

Anya goes back to serving, and Giles leans against the counter and wipes his glasses. He sometimes wonders why he's here, lately. He only ever stayed here for Buffy, and now she's gone it seems rather pointless. He takes a deep breath and helps a customer find Dragon's blood.

 

When he gets home, Giles feels stretched and sore. He throws his keys on the hallstand, and sees Spike still on the couch, sleeping on his side. He looks like a relic from Giles' teen years, like the 70s never ended. Giles isn't sure how he feels about that.

Going to the kitchen, Giles makes himself a sandwich and a cup of tea, quiet as he can. He must make some noise, though, because the figure in the living room stirs and asks, "Watcher, is that you?"

"No," Giles replies. "It's that other person who lives here and has keys. Of course it's me, Spike."

Spike gets up and saunters into the kitchen.

"Just wanted to make sure. Could've been a Fyoral demon," Spike says, smirking.

Giles leans back against the kitchen counter and raises his eyebrows.

"Got any food, Rupert?" Spike asks.

"Nothing in the way of blood," Giles says.

"Well then, how 'bout a smoke? C'mon, I know you have some, Rupert, I saw you earlier. I just need something to do with my mouth."

Giles nods in the direction of one of the cupboards. Spike reaches up, and looks through the cupboard, his shirt rising to reveal a sliver of pale skin. Giles has always imagined vampires feel cool and dry, and he thinks about putting his palm to that spot, finding out. He doesn't, though, and Spike finds the cigarettes.

Spike digs one out; lights it with finesse. He offers Giles one, and Giles waves him away. Cigarette firmly held in one corner of his mouth; Spike puts his lighter back in his pocket, and moves to put the cigarettes back.

"No, you keep them," Giles says. "I'm trying to quit."

Spike puts the pack away in one of his pockets, and continues to smoke. Giles eats his sandwich and drinks his tea.

 

At night, after watching a tape someone sent of recent episodes of The Bill, Spike leaves again. Giles listens to the Led Zeppelin as he moves about the house and gets ready for bed. He strips down to his underwear and slides into bed, bringing the covers up to his neck.

His head hurts, a dull ache behind his eyes. He thinks about taking some aspirin, but that would involve leaving the bed and he feels too tired to move. Over the years he has learnt not to twist and turn, just lie still and wait for sleep to claim him. Eventually consciousness falls away.

Grief is not romantic like literature would have him believe. It's draining, and he'd like to sleep it away, but grief finds him even there. He sees Buffy's smiling face whenever he dreams and her broken body (and others) whenever he closes his eyes.

 

The next night, he calls Dawn. He knows he has to. He's not sure how he feels about the girl, but Buffy loved her and so he knows he should make an effort.

Her voice is young and her speech patterns so impossibly teenage that he thinks it surprising they took so long to discover she was made out of Buffy.

"Hello Giles," she says, and her voice is dreary.

"Hello," he says back.

In the background he can hear a crash and some muffled swearing.

Muffled through the receiver, Giles can hear Dawn yell, "Spike, stop trying to trying to cook. You'll destroy the kitchen."

Then, "Sorry, Spike just had an accident."

"That's OK," Giles says. "I just wanted to check up on you."

"I'm..." Dawn pauses. "I'm surviving. You could always come by if you wanted to know how I was."

He doesn't dare go to the house. Buffy and Joyce are there; dead women seeped into the walls. Their ghosts are loud and noisy and Giles' head aches. "I'm just very busy," he says.

"Oh."

"Well, I'll leave you to Spike then," Giles says, and hangs up.

Without his ear pressed against the receiver, the place is deadly quiet around him. He goes and makes a cup of tea, and takes out a bottle of whisky.

 

The night after next Spike is back, leaning against his door, reeking of alcohol. He stumbles forward when Giles opens the door and mumbles, "What's up, Rupert."

Giles hasn't the sense to turn him away.

When Spike moves further into the flat, Giles slams the door shut. He sits on the couch and continues to watch the news with a shuddering sigh, ignoring Spike stumbling about.

Spike stumbles towards the couch, and falls on to it sideways. Giles refuses to look at him.

"How are you, watcher?" Spike asks, voice slurred. "Doing well?"

"Fine, thank you," Giles lies.

This part is easy, playing the disapproving grown-up. Giles has years of experience.

"Yes, we're all doing so well," Spike spits. "With the drinking and smoking and not talking and all the BULLSHIT!"

"Sport news next..."

"That's quite enough thank you," Giles says.

Spike clambers over the couch next to him, his dirty fingers digging into the material, his boots getting muck on the armrest at the opposite end. Spike rights himself into an upright, sitting position and sways dangerously close to leaning on him.

"I bet you're doing so well. You won't even look at them. Not even me. Like it was our fault. She made her stupid choice, Rupert," Spike moans.

Giles puts his hand to the bridge of his nose and pinches, trying to keep away the headache he can feel coming on.

"Don't just sit there. Talk to me," Spike pleads, and his bony body knocks against Giles' side. Giles shoves him away.

"Say something," Spike laughs, wet and drunk and disgusting. "Hit me again? She used to hit me all the time, you know. It was like every time we met. Instead of hello it was a fist in the face."

Giles wants to tell Spike to shut up, but he invited him in and he knew the stupid creature would be like this.

"They don't even insult me much any more. I thought I could count on at least that staying the same, but no, they look at me with pity. Willow even looks me with concern. Concern! Can you believe it? Concern," Spike continues.

"And you, you don't even go see them any more. The little bit, she misses you, even. I'm not sure Willow even notices, she's such a wet rag, and Xander he..."

Spike stops struggling to stay upright, and collapses fully against Giles side. His elbow connects sharply with Giles' rib, and Giles pretends that accounts for all the pain in his stomach, the feeling like he can't breathe.

"It will be another fine and sunny day in Sunnydale tomorrow," the weather lady says.

Giles buries his face in his hands and begins to sob, as Spike falls over him doing the same.

 

They don't speak of it in the morning, when Giles wakes up still fully clothed on the couch with a heavy body slumped sideways on his lap. He has to shove Spike forward onto the coffee table a little, before he can even get up. He thinks about leaving him there, but puts Spike's head back on the armrest anyway.

Giles has a long warm shower, scouring the grime from his body and rubbing the crust from his eyes. There are long red raised lines on his thighs when he finishes. They sting when he rubs himself dry and as he puts on his clothes.

He gets into the kitchen and makes himself a cup of tea, resisting the siren call of the bottle in the cabinet in front of him by reminding himself of the time. He drinks the tea with the teabag still in the cup, the way he always has done (it used to make Ethan laugh and throw socks at him).

When he gets back into the tiny living room to look for his keys Spike blearily half-opens one eye and watches him silently. Giles offers a hint of a smile, before walking swiftly out the door.

 

After work Giles goes to a pub, the same one he went to with Ethan last time the prat was in town. He drinks horrid American beer until the sun sets and when he goes home Spike is, happily, nowhere to be found.

 

On the weekend he sets out to help the gang to patrol. Willow has set up a system, given them all detailed instructions and colour-coded sheets. The bot stands there, bright and cheery and plastic.

They all look warily at it as they move towards Sunnydale Funeral Home for a quick check-up. Spike keeps glancing at it with a pale face, as if he expects it to attack him.

They near the funeral home and it looks no different from how it did six years ago when Buffy took that idiot Owen boy out for a date and... Giles looks down at his feet.

The bot looks at Spike and says something that makes the trembling pale creature vomit on the grass.

Willow says, urgently, "I'm sorry. I thought I'd got it to stop. Sorry," and Giles grabs Spike by the arm and decides to drag him home.

 

It is the next night when Spike turns up on his doorstep again. The vampire knocks, something which shocks Giles enough to render him speechless.

When Giles answers the door, Spike smiles slow and cruel, and holds up a large bottle of vodka. "I bring an offering. I thought we could share."

Giles takes the bottle from Spike's hands and ushers him inside. Spike walks inside with the insolent swagger Giles had thought long gone and leans against the counter, loose-limbed. He looks, to Giles, like those awful male models in the magazines Buffy used to get, smaller and yet more imposing. Giles wants to know what his angle is.

"Aren't you going to open your present, Rupert?" Spike asks, drawing the words out. "I know it hasn't got a bow, or any such thing, but I had to show my appreciation, Rupert, for the way you've taken care of me lately. It's really something special."

Giles sends a dirty look at him, his usual reproach, but it only makes Spike smirk more. Giles leans back against the opposite wall and carefully opens the bottle, keeping his eyes on Spike at all times. Spike walks over to him, and stands in front of him, his eyes on the open bottle that looks forlorn in Giles' hand.

"It's only fair you go first, Rupert," Spike says, curling his tongue over his top lip. "No need to bother with glasses. There'd just be more mess for you to take care of and we wouldn't want that."

So Giles lifts the bottle to his mouth and drinks. It burns going down, but Giles doesn't care. He keeps his eyes on Spike's face for his reaction, that obnoxious smirk again. Giles lifts his eyebrows above his glasses and passes the bottle in Spike's direction. Spike takes it slowly, caressing Giles' fingers as he puts his hand around the neck. Only when Giles is sure the awful brat isn't going to drop the bottle does he let go.

Spike takes a swig, his throat working hard to swallow it all down. When he's done, a little dribble of liquor sits on his lower lip. Giles has seen the same thing happen with cups of blood many times, watched Spike carelessly wipe it away with the back of a hand. Not this time. This time Spike licks his lips, wide and crude, before finally catching the droplet with the side of his tongue. Then, that mouth resumes its infernal smirk.

Giles grabs the bottle back. He walks over to the couch, turns his back on Spike and sits down. He takes a long drink and swallows as fast as he can, breathing a little too hard. He hears a thud as Spike's hands fall on either side of his head.

"How does it taste, watcher? Bitter? How does it feel? Does it burn?"

Giles drinks a little more.

Spike jumps over the couch with inhuman grace, and puts himself beside Giles. Giles pushes the bottle at him.

Giles is sure he can hear that awful thing drinking as he takes off his glasses and puts them on the coffee table. Something's very wrong with him, he's sure of it. His heart is beating too fast and everything in front of his eyes is too blurred and his limbs feel heavy.

Giles takes the bottle back when Spike offers it anyway. He drinks a little more than he should, then a little more than that and a little more than that.

"I need to thank you, for being so good to me, when you can't even look them in the eye. Did you know? The lit, Dawn, she cries herself to sleep all the time. You don't even go there any more. She thinks you blame her, you know," that awful creature speaks.

"Just drink, Spike," Giles forces through clenched teeth. It's too hot in the room and he feels like he needs to undo the buttons on his shirt.

Spike drinks, messily, the way he should. Not like the pretence of being civilised he had before at all. Spike makes a little satisfied noise in his throat that Giles hates hearing. He wants to drink until he's deaf.

Spike begins to speak again even before Giles wrestles the bottle back.

"Soon, I'm sure, they'll forget your face," Spike spits. "Is that what you want? To forget or to be forgotten?"

"Shut up."

"You don't get to forget her, Rupert. Not when I can't. Not when she's ruined me. I'll make sure you remember."

"Shut up," he says. Giles drinks too fast and he can feel his eyes water and the pain expand further in his chest.

"It's like you're not even here, really. You've already left them all, haven't you? Is that next? You can't go," and now Spike sounds less vindictive and more pathetic, a blubbering useless thing.

"You, you can't. It's not fair. It's not."

"Shut up," Giles says, but it makes no difference to Spike's mutterings. "Shut up, you stupid man. Shut up!"

Giles grabs Spike by the neck and shakes him. "Stop it."

He lets go of the bottle and it knocks against the couch as the little remaining liquid spills into the carpet.

Giles grabs the other side of Spike's neck harder and leans in and bites that insolent mouth. He presses it open, forces his way inside. Finally he has found a way to make Spike shut up.

Spike gets a grip and his tongue flicks against Giles'. It's a vicious meeting of mouth. Giles' teeth scrape against Spike's top lip and his tongue is violent and punishing.

Giles gets a grip in the hair at the back of Spike's neck and wrenches his head back to get a better angle. With Spike he doesn't hold back, rough and unrelenting. He remembers Ethan liked it hard, wanted him to make it hurt.

Spike's hand (his naughty, clever hand with burn scars that have faded to nothing already) creeps under Giles' shirt, pulls the fabric out from his pants. It grabs at his skin, warmer than it deserves to be, and strokes roughly up his back.

Giles tries to pull that thin black shirt from Spike's body, but it's difficult, with arms all over the place. Spike wriggles about to help, and they tip over. Spike's head makes a thudding noise as it hits the armrest.

It's somehow easier for Giles to get the shirt off him, like that and he throws it across the room once it's off. Giles can feel each muscle, each dead rib, as he draws his hand up Spike's chest. As his hand reaches Spike's shoulder, Spike puts his hands back beneath Giles' shirt.

Impatient and dumb, Spike tears the shirt as he takes it off Giles' body. Giles wants to punish this creature - for ripping his shirt, for loving Buffy, for existing at all. Instead he just kisses him harder. He uses less teeth, now, and the kiss is slippery and messy.

Spike brings his hands to Giles' arse and presses them closer together, right where he needs it. Giles feels too hot, too hard. He lets out a hiss as they move, uncoordinated.

Spike makes a jerky movement, and they roll off the couch. Giles' arm hits the coffee table and the bottle smashes under Spike's bony arse.

Giles cherishes the pain for a moment. His throat feels like sandpaper as he breathes.

He picks up his glasses from the coffee table.

"I can't do this," Giles says, attempting to untangle his limbs from Spike's. "I'm much too old for this."

"Can't you pretend?" Spike asks, lifting his head from the floor.

Giles looks at him and feels like laughing. Spike is rumpled and tear-stained and looks more human than he should.

"Believe me, Spike, in spite of your advanced age there is nothing about being around you that makes me feel young."

Slowly, Giles gets up, feeling his joints creak in protest. He holds out a hand to Spike and helps him up. Their bodies bump against each other as Spike stands.

"C'mon, I'll make you a cup of tea," Giles says.

Spike looks at him, unsure, but accepts. Giles is already planning his flight out.


End file.
